Tag: stax

The discovery of Otis Redding by the then nascent Stax Records of Memphis Tennessee (see this post for more) remains a testament to the profundity of a series of fortunate events, as well as the contradiction-in-terms that luck is something one earns. When Stax Records was well on its way to regional prominence nurturing the house band Booker T and the…

Many artists get their start not as starlit natural performers, but instead after spending years in other roles within the industry before becoming discovered, or more often than not, forging their own path and breaking away independently. Isaac Hayes, who started as an instrumentalist, song writer, and producer for Stax is only one example of…

When Jerry Wexler of Atlantic Records first stumbled on Aretha Franklin, he knew Franklin would have the best chance of producing hits down south with his partner at Stax. He called Jim Stewart in Memphis and asked him if he would take Franklin’s contract. Jim Stewart, then busy trying to maintain a quickly growing label with…

Singers have been “covering” other artists’ songs for generations now. A cover song, or often colloquially simply, “cover,” is a song that has already been released by a different artist, but has been renewed and reinvented — or, “covered” — by a different artist. Historically and practically, cover songs offer practice and inspiration to developing artists, while also — at…

Stax writers Isaac Hayes and David Porter (from left to right) were working into wee hours of the morning to prepare for a recording session the next day. When Hayes finally found a groove on the piano, he yelled to fellow writer David Porter, urging him to come back to the room quickly before he…

We are of course dedicated to capturing the people and spirits who give birth to the sounds we hear: the singers and instrumentalists. They, after all, embody the very musicality we admire and ultimately cling to, even though people in other positions — engineers, producers, and writers — play critical roles too. Yet, these artists and their…